You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles
by evenhisfacewasanalias
Summary: A blind seer. Another bounty he couldn't deliver. She was an innocent, like the Child, with whom she seemed to have some strange connection, though she could not tell him what the Child was or where it came from. Perhaps that is why the girl went so willingly into his custody. Or perhaps she really was a seer, and knew he would never hand her over to anyone else.
1. Prologue

_A blind seer._

_Another bounty he couldn't deliver. Not to those men who wanted her removed from the local Ambassador's compound, alive or otherwise. She was an innocent, like the Child, with whom she seemed to have some strange connection, though she could not tell him what the Child was or where it came from._

_Perhaps that is why the girl went so willingly into his custody. Or perhaps she really was a seer, and knew he would never hand her over to anyone else._


	2. Chapter 1

Amira had proven herself useful, it seemed, as the Mandalorian had begun coming up with increasingly thin excuses to keep her aboard the Razor Crest. There was no longer any mention of collecting her bounty, nor of returning her home. He had begun trusting her with the care of the Child, whom she called _Yoruba_ \- as all children were called in her homeland until their true names were discovered - while the former bounty hunter searched for its people, or took up on odd jobs on backwater planets. And much to her relief he had finally begun taking her warnings to heart whenever she sensed he was walking into a more dangerous situation than he realized. Which was, unfortunately, quite often. But she insisted she couldn't really see the future.

"It is impossible to predict the future. Some of us just see the present more clearly than others." She laughed softly at her own joke, turning towards the sound of his voice with unseeing eyes. It made most people a little uneasy to be looked at directly like this, she knew, but the Mandalorian had stopped turning away whenever he saw she was looking right through him. Though perhaps he finally realized she didn't need her eyes to read him. Even through all the armor, and the silence, the Mandalorian wore his heart on his sleeve. Her continued presence on this ship, and this newfound mission to bring the Child to its home made it readily apparent what kind of man the Mandalorian was.

And so gradually Amira had stopped asking him to return her to the Ambassador's service. Though her work there had been useful, it wasn't that hard to sense when the local feudal lords were withholding information from them or were planning to try and seize back power - they always were. Here she felt vital in a way she hadn't before, both to the Child and to the Mandalorian, who was slowly getting used to her presence. He no longer tensed up when she would rest a small hand on his pauldron or his arm as they walked, and had on one occasion placed her hand there himself - though the streets were wide and the villagers few and she could have followed him by sound alone. She found herself nearly blushing at the gentle tug of his gloved hand as he placed her bare one at his elbow, where he wore no armor and she could almost feel the heat of the skin and the steady pulse of his heartbeat beneath his shirts. But the sense of duty radiated from him so strongly that she felt no inkling that he was seeking out this contact for any other reason, so she tamped down on her own growing fondness for the man.

It was hard enough not to let the low rumble of his voice affect her with each carefully chosen word he spoke, only slightly distorted by his ever present helmet. Even without her hand on his person she could feel it vibrate through her, his voice pitched to the exact frequency of her insides. So between them she did most of the talking, hoping he'd never notice the effect it had on her. Though it wasn't what had brought her onto his ship, she could occasionally admit to herself that it was part of why she continued to stay.

* * *

"There's plenty of work to be found on Arkania." She heard the Mandalorian tilt his helmet her way, still wondering that she always had a rough sense where they were in the galaxy, though he no longer questioned how, "There's more money in helping the colonists there obtain access to the outlying mines, but I'm sure the planet's original inhabitants would also appreciate you driving back those that would break the treaties."

"More money buys more fuel," comes the soft rasp of his reply after several long minutes in which he seemed to weigh the pros and cons of either option.

"But you will still take the natives' side," Amira smiled knowingly.

The Mandalorian huffed out a sound that she knew was intended to dismiss her certainty but she had no doubts which side he would choose in the end. The Mandalorian would do what he needed to survive, and to protect those in his care, but if given the choice he would always take the more honorable path.

She felt the ship shift slightly beneath her as he set a new course towards the planet.

* * *

With the Mandalorian predictably headed towards the borderlands to offer his services to the locals, Amira followed the sounds of the village to the local tavern, memorizing the path that would take her back to the ship after she and the Child had eaten. But she found herself enjoying the chatter and unrecycled air too much, and lingered at the tavern even as the Child fell asleep in her lap, dreaming of some other time and place. She stroked along its oversized little ears as she allowed its dreams to wash over her. Sometimes she could sense a word or two coming from the Child in her mind, but always in a language she had never heard before. Thankfully its more basic needs - food, sleep, love - were more easily sensed and satisfied. But always she felt the Child could peer into her more deeply than she could read even the simplest of beings. She knew it would one day grow to be a force to be reckoned with. She hoped it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands before they could bring it safely home.

"Is this seat taken?" An unfamiliar voice interrupted her thoughts. She turned her head towards the source of the noise, slanting her eyes away to indicate she could not discern any gestures he was making.

"Which seat are you referring to?" She responded politely enough, even as she tightened her hold on the Child in her lap. This village should be fairly safe but there was still a bounty on both their heads. Any interest in either of them always put her on high alert.

"I was hoping the one next to you might be available…" she relaxed as she realized his interest was less than mercenary. It was easy to forget, though she had often been told by others, that she was nice to look at. She nodded gently in his direction, not minding the idea of some company after the quiet of space travel.

"Thanks," he said, taking the seat to her right, "I'm N'gantu, by the way." The name meant he was likely one of the original residents, not one of the colonists. Most of the descriptions of their species focused on their visual attributes, which meant little to her, except she remembered that they had six fingers and two tongues. This clearly didn't hurt his speech, his Galactic Basic lightly accented and pleasant to listen to.

"I'm Teva." Even if he sounded nice she still knew to give him a fake name, though he seemed to like it well enough.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Teva." She could feel the slight whoosh of air as he thrust his six-fingered hand out to greet her, only to quickly draw it back when he realized his mistake. Usually she would put her hand out first to save the other person this awkwardness, but she was unaware what the native greeting entailed. At least this little blunder meant it was unlikely he was a cold, calculated hunter.

"Likewise," she allowed him a small smile.

"Is he yours?"

She assumed he meant the small bundle of sleeping mischief in her lap, "I'm watching it for a companion."

"A friend?" She knew this dance well.

"Yes, just a friend." She wasn't entirely sure what she was to the Mandalorian, but friendship seemed a safe enough description, though she wasn't entirely sure he'd call it that. Perhaps she was just another foundling to him, like the Child was.

"Have you been in the village long?"

"For a little while," another lie, but a harmless one, "though I have not met many of the people here yet," she offered truthfully, enjoying the little flirtation for what it was.

"Then you will have to come out more. In fact, just now, the annual bonfire festival is going on nearby my home. Many of the villagers will be there again this evening, and there is much to see…" he paused, and she laughed not unkindly at the mistake, "...there will be lots of delicious foods and the burning unghar wood is very fragrant."

"It does sound wonderful…" she demurred. She had smelled the spicy wood-smoke on him when he sat down next to her, and a festival actually did sound enjoyable, but she knew that she needed to head back to the ship soon. Whatever job the Mandalorian had taken on he would usually check in before nightfall. Still she listened to N'gantu wax poetic about the festival's activities and its origins.

"When will your friend return? It is only a short ways from here, and soon the sun will set and the fires will be lit..."

"She's not interested," came a sharp, familiar voice from behind N'gantu. Amira realized in her distactraction she hadn't noticed the Mandalorian entering the tavern. He had probably already gone looking for them in the ship - she had clearly lost track of the hour. Her suitor was quick to vacate his seat, suddenly finding somewhere else he needed to be after catching sight of the Mandalorian - she could only imagine the state he was in if there had been any trouble at the borderlands, or the fierce weaponry he always carried with him. N'gantu didn't really strike her as the fighting type, though that hadn't been what interested her.

"You didn't need to scare him off so quickly, we were only talking. There wasn't any danger."

"He was interested in a little more than talking," came the clipped response, dripping with more sarcasm that she ever thought the man capable. Amira felt her own hackles rising in response to the chiding, though she knew she hadn't been where he expected to find them at this hour.

"I am aware of that, but I wasn't about to run off with him and put _Yoruba_ in any danger." At this the child lets out a soft yawn and began wriggling in her grasp, and just like that her annoyance evaporated. She knows it is checking on The Mandalorian to make sure he is unharmed. Though the Child rarely seems to sense its own precarious position in the world, it always wants to protect its guardian. In its mind, he is the one who needs looking after. Amira can't help but agree.

"Are you alright? Did everything go ok at the borderlands?"

"Everything went fine, I will return tomorrow."

He doesn't offer up any more than that, and she can feel he is still radiating tension - whether towards N'gantu or her or whatever he dealt with at the border. Clearly, talking about it isn't on the table, so she simply lifts the Child towards the Mandalorian, allowing him to accept the small bundle of robes and sleepy Child. This seems to ease the tension in him somewhat, but there is still a sharp edge to his mood that she can't quite figure out. The silence stretches out between as the Child quiets its cooing and falls back asleep against his beskar chestplate.

"If the kid wasn't with you, would you have left with him?"

"Perhaps," she answers honestly, "though I wouldn't go without telling you first."

* * *

If he was bothered by her answer he kept it to himself, handing the Child back to her as she stood to leave. Though she had walked here on her own, she felt him threading her free hand around the inside of his elbow once more, as if to make sure she didn't suddenly change her mind and run off to find N'gantu. Had he always been so protective of her?

"Would it really be so awful if I did go off with someone for a night?" She asks carefully, hoping not to provoke his earlier temper.

"You're not my prisoner. I can't…" he stops, considering his words, "I can't expect you to live without any contact with others."

"What about you? I know that you are human under that armor, don't you need contact with others as well?" She pushed his own words back at him, annoyed at the coolness of his response. "The kind that doesn't involve fists and violence?" She wasn't entirely sure she wanted the answer - to hear him say that he didn't need it, or worse, that he did, just not with her. But suddenly she had to know.

"I cannot remove my helmet in front of another, " he dodges. "This is the way."

She had noticed, over time, that the phrase was usually invoked to end a discussion. However, it was a talisman that rarely worked against her own curiosity. "That doesn't really answer the question - so you need contact, just your helmet stays on?" It felt a bit childish to continue using the euphemism when they were both mature adults, but she could tell the Mandalorian was already uneasy with the topic. Especially as they were still technically out in public, though only a few people still lingered on the streets this late. But she could almost feel the jump of his pulse through the layers that still separated them. She had her answer.

"It's nothing you need to worry about." Which is exactly the wrong thing to say if he wants to keep her from worrying.

"It is though - people need to be touched. Even whatever _Yoruba_ is needs it. And you'll go mad without it, but you haven't so much as accepted a handshake in the months I've been with you..."

"You've touched me," he interrupts, suddenly. When she doesn't respond he tugs his arm forward, reminding her of her grip on his elbow.

"I'm barely touching you, though…"

"It's enough."

It wasn't the answer she had expected, and she wasn't sure what to make of it. Was he just trying to end the conversation? Or had he really replaced masked, anonymous sex with guiding her around? It didn't seem like enough. Unless it meant something more? Her mind was spiralling with all the possibilities until it landed somewhere he probably hadn't expected.

"Wait, so does this mean you've never been kissed?"

* * *

"Couldn't you just turn off the lights? Or blindfold the other person?"

The Mandalorian let out an almost imperceptible sigh at the question, as if he had heard it many times before, or had had the thought himself all too often without any positive outcomes. They were back in the Razor Crest now, Amira sitting just behind the Mandalorian in the cockpit as he checks all the ship's defenses, the Child already fast asleep in its makeshift nursery cupboard.

"Too much room for error."

"But you were able to take off your helmet in front of me." She uses the term 'able' loosely - the Mandalorian had been heavily concussed from a fight and had only allowed her to remove his helmet because he could not cauterize the wounds on the back of his head on his own. He had been nearly willing to bleed out just to avoid it, but she reminded him that both she and the Child would not survive long if he were killed. Amira was capable of many things, but she could not pilot a ship without sight, nor could she take on their many enemies alone.

"Those were...extenuating circumstances."

"And this isn't?"

The Mandalorian gruffs out a response that might be a laugh or it might be an agreement, all she can really sense is his unease in talking about it any further. But maybe it's the talking that's the problem.

Moving as slowly as possible, she shifts over toward where the Mandalorian is seated in front of her. There's not much room to maneuver, especially if she doesn't want to accidentally brush up against the steering panel she feels is somewhere behind her, but she manages to situate herself more or less facing him, sliding one of her knees between his own on the jumpseat so she can keep herself from falling into him. Her skirts are tangled up around his leg but he doesn't make any move to brush them off.

He could easily have put out a hand to stop her at any point, or simply guided her back to her own seat, and she would have let the subject drop between them forever. But all she senses is a slight intake of breath from below her, as she slowly feels for the edge of his helmet. His own hands finally shift, but only to grasp at the outside of her thighs - keeping her steady, or perhaps even grounding himself.

She tugs the helmet gently upwards, moving at an AT-AT's pace so there's no mistaking the fact that he's allowing this to happen. The sound of his breathing grows clearer and somewhat shakier as she lifts the helmet further, revealing more and more of his face, the gloved hands on her thighs tightening but never moving to halt her progress. Her own hands are shaking slightly with the gravity of what she is doing, and she nearly overbalances when she reaches over to set the helmet down beside them. But the Mandalorian is quick to catch her, shifting her closer to him in the process. This far forward she can almost sit back against his knees, putting them nearly face to face.

Her hands reach out once more to find him, fingers sliding into the thick waves of his hair that she didn't remember being quite so long before. Did he have to cut it himself? She briefly allows her short nails to drag along his scalp, as the Mandalorian beneath her shivers slightly in their wake. She wonders if mapping out his face with her fingers might inadvertently violate his code, so she refrains. It's enough to have him like this.

"Close your eyes," she whispers gently, reluctant to break the spell of silence around them but knowing it will make things easier for him. She hears his breathing quicken as he anticipates her lips descending on his own.

But instead she bends down to press a soft kiss to his forehead, right beneath his hairline, nosing at the strands she's mussed with her fingertips. She can feel his head tilt up towards her own, almost as if he thinks she missed her intended target. She presses another chaste kiss to the edge of his left brow, smiling at the slight twitch she feels beneath her lips. Her hands tighten in his hair to hold him still as she tips her head to the other side, kissing just below his right eye and down to his cheek. She uses her hold on him to tilt his head back gently, dragging her lips down to the very corner of his mouth and delighting in the way he unconsciously tries to turn into the kiss. But she can't resist delivering another teasing kiss right below his jaw, and drawing a sharp intake of breath from her Mandalorian.

His hands are clutching at the back of her thighs now, dragging her closer and more fully into his lap. She moves her bent knee to the outside of his, settling herself as well as she can across his armor. She distracts herself from slightly less than comfortable seat by brushing her cheek against the stubble at his jaw, and giving a soft nip to his earlobe. She lets at a small laugh as he jolts beneath her, gloved hands coming up to clutch at her sides. Deciding to store that little piece of information away for later, she pulls back a little to let him catch his breath. Even she is feeling a little dizzy at the trust he is placing in her, allowing himself to be vulnerable in this way before her. It's a lot to take in.

Then finally, _finally,_ she leans in to brush her lips against his own, enjoying the slight rasp of his chapped lips and the little zing of pleasure as their lips finally meet for the first time, allowing herself to linger there for several long seconds before pulling back ever so slightly. She runs her fingers soothingly through his hair before sliding them down behind his ears as she leans in for another kiss, this one firmer, more.

This time she feels the Mandalorian shifting to kiss her back more fully, though the kiss still remains just as chaste as before. As his hands begin relax against her sides, she tentatively allows the very tip of her tongue to run along the seam of his lips, encouraging him to open up to her. He does so willingly, allowing her tongue to slide easily against his own. It takes him a few moments to catch up with this new layer to their kiss, but then he's responding beautifully. The kiss is still unhurried, as they slowly learn the taste and feel of the other. But the Mandalorian is a quick study, returning every nip of her teeth and twist of her tongue as though he had known her kisses forever. She can feel herself growing lightheaded at all that attention being turned back on her. She pulls back momentarily just to catch her breath.

"_Mira_, " he breathes out in her absence. In her native tongue the word means beloved , which he couldn't possibly know. She lets out a pleased little hum at the endearment all the same, just as he pulls her back down towards his mouth, kissing her until she practically feels boneless. The hands running along her back are now the only thing that keeps her from melting into the floor. She has no idea how long they spend locked together like this, as if trying to make up for an entire lifetime of kisses in a single night, but eventually the hands at her back relax enough that she is able to draw away. She presses her forehead to his, continuing to share the same air for long moments as they both come back down from their high.

She then delivers one final featherlight kiss against his lips before reaching down to find his helmet, and setting her Mandalorian back to rights once more. It takes a little longer to untangle herself from his lap, but she manages it with as much grace as her weakened knees will allow. His gloved hand reaches for her own as she moves to leave, and she allows their fingers to lace together for just a moment.

"Tomorrow...will you go out again?" His voice comes out roughly, and she feels a small pang of regret that she hadn't heard him speak more without the modulator. But she knows what he is asking her.

As for her answer, she presses a kiss to his helmet. "No. I don't think I will."


	3. Chapter 2

The Child wakes her early wanting breakfast, which Amira feels almost as keenly as her own hunger. This manages to bring her outside of her small bunk just in time to catch the Mandalorian strapping on his weapons for the day, which she suspects the Child knew. It wanders away from her over to its other guardian, and she hears his preparations cease and the Child's cooing increase in volume, smiling to herself that the Child clearly has the former bounty hunter wrapped around its finger.

She makes breakfast for just the two of them, some kind of rehydrated meat porridge that smells alright, at least, knowing that the Mandalorian has already taken his meal alone. But still he sits with them as they eat, _Yoruba_ on his lap and his knee pressing against her own. There's a new energy there this morning, after last night. He no longer keeps so much distance between them, or between himself and the Child, after more or less confessing that he needs touch - needs them. She presses her knee more firmly against him as she sips her porridge.

Unprompted, the Mandalorian is the first to speak, tell them about yesterday's job. "They had me take back some kind of sacred ore from the colonists, they need it to power their weapons and defend their lands."

"Tridedlanite," she adds, "the locals use the mineral byproducts from the refining process to enrich their soil. The colonists still haven't figured out how to break it down without massive power inputs and wasting most of it. It is good you returned it." She can hear the slight scrape of metal that means the Mandalorian is looking at her. Amira can't quite tell if he's wondering at her knowledge or at the praise she's offered, but she smiles back at him all the same.

"They asked me to come back and meet with other village heads. At dawn."

Amira has never quite gotten used to defining time by the amount of light that others see, but she can tell from the tension in the Mandalorian that dawn is nearby. That he is holding back his leave to remain a few more moments with them. She allows him these few moments of peace before setting her empty bowl aside. She does not hold herself tightly in when she reaches over to gather up the Child, allowing her bare arms to brush against his stomach and arms, right below where his armor would shield him. He doesn't exactly relax at the touch, but it leaves a different kind of tension there, one she hopes they can explore at a later time.

"We'll be here when you return."

* * *

Amira spends the rest of her morning listening to the computer read off as much news as they can catch out here. It's a habit left over from her time with Ambassador Krileck, and part of the reason why some people think she's such a great seer. Mostly she just pays attention, and listens for the things other people miss. It's much easier to know what could go wrong before her senses tell her it already has.

Now she listens as much looking for trouble to avoid as trouble to get into - ever on the lookout for jobs for the Mandalorian that might put him in a little less danger than the near-suicide missions offered by his remaining contacts.

She has plenty of credits to her own name, quite a lot of them actually, but the Mandalorian won't let her use them, insisting her accounts are too easy to trace. But still she tries to contribute in little ways, sometimes setting herself up as a 'fortune teller' of sorts if they are hanging around a planet for a few days. She's still getting used to this new moral code, where lying is alright if it gets fuel in the Razor Crest, but she tries to at least leave her clients with a little bit of useful self-knowledge, even if her predictions for them have only about a 50:50 shot of coming true. She'll be long gone by that time.

Unfortunately, there's no such work for her on Arkania. The locals aren't exactly in a rush to trust outsiders, even if they were friendly enough - N'gantu in particular. And it seemed like the Mandalorian wanted her to stay on the ship today, so stay she does. She tries to use her time as best she can, going from news streams to searching through any database she can get access to for any hints as to the Child's origins.

Apparently the search terms "big ears", "long lifespan", "very cute" or any iteration of what she knows about the Child don't yield any useful hits. She has been told the Child is "green" (the color - not the metaphysical quality meaning naive or greedy or jealous - she'll never understand how a single visual attribute can mean so many contradictory things, sighted people must be in a constant state of confusion), but this doesn't help narrow anything down. Particularly with the large numbers of ancient human texts that refer to all extra-planetary species as "little green men". None of them are the little green men she is searching for.

To atone for the lack of progress she makes in finding its homeworld, Amira busies her hands stitching together a makeshift toy for the Child. She's not a seamstress, but she cobbles together some kind of lumpy figure from one of the Mandalorian's shirts that has fallen beyond repair, together with bits of ribbon and other odds and ends from on of her own skirts. Nothing it could accidentally choke on, though mostly it knows to only put food in its mouth. Still, she notices the Mandalorian has moved everything not bolted down in the Razor Crest a few feet higher, as the Child remains curious as ever.

* * *

The Mandalorian returns early, back with some supplies purchased with yesterday's earnings. Several of the local villages have decided to band together tonight and take down the illegal mine that runs below their own smaller ones, stripping the ore out from under them and causing numerous caveins. It'll require a coordinated effort - to flood the mine, destroy the colonists' equipment, and take back their ill-gotten gains all in one night, before the thieves can regroup. It's not a permanent solution, but it will allow them to take back their borders, and the recovered ore will help them arm themselves against further incursions.

The plan is not without its risks, but the thieves' ignorance is in their favor. They won't be expecting the different villages, so often at odds with one another, to be working together, and they certainly won't be expecting the Mandalorian, or his weaponry. Still, she recognizes that he has brought them back supplies in advance, and hears him moving around her in the cockpit, setting up an automatic course to a distant Mandalorian covert - something he's started doing ever since she patched up his head wound - in case he can't return. Amira reminds herself it's merely a precaution, that the situation is not so dire. It is only so the Mandalorian doesn't worry about them while he is out. She wishes, not for the first time, that she could do more to keep him safe.

These precautions have become something of a practiced routine for their protector, and she can tell from the clock's announcement that he still has nearly two hours before he has to set out to the borderlands. But he won't sit still, finding a dozen new things on the ship to check on or secure, including quite a number of things in the cockpit, where she sits with the Child in what she's come to think of as their seats. He keeps brushing past her each time, until finally she stands. She gives the doll in her hands over to its recipient, whose immediate coos of delight are worth the many small pricks to her finger that making it has left, and reaches for the Mandalorian on his next pass. Her hand catches his forearm, and she tugs at it to get him to face her. She holds him there, just long enough to get him to still for a moment. Though her hold on him is light, he doesn't try to free himself. That tells her everything she needs to know.

She brushes past him, moving towards the ladder and knowing that he will follow.

* * *

Her bunk, as it were, is barely more than a cupboard in the wall with space for a bed. But there's just enough room to sit the Mandalorian down on it, and crawl back into his lap more easily than she had the previous evening. This time she pulls her skirts up with her, to keep them getting tangled and to provide a cushion against the unforgiving beskar armor beneath her. The partition won't shut with the two of them sitting like this, but they'll be able to hear it if the Child manages to open the cockpit door (a skill that still alarms them both).

It feels easier, this time, to tug his helmet off, tossing it back onto the bedding behind him. It's harder though, not to want to trace along the lines of his face, create a firmer picture of him in her mind. She knows that his jaw is square and his hair a bit unkempt, and she's familiar with the whiskers that tickle her as she kissed him. She imagines he might be handsome, though that's never particularly mattered to her. She's much more interested in the way he's already almost vibrating beneath her, waiting for her to do something, anything to him.

She doesn't tease him this time. Her hands quickly find his neck to orient herself so she can kiss him like she's been wanting to all day. He responds to her immediately, kissing her back slowly but firmly. His gloved hands are already clutching at her back and sides, drawing her into him.

Her own hands slide up into his hair, giving a small tug that earns her a groan that she feels more than hears. She tugs a little harder, tipping his head back so she can chase that rumbling sound, dragging her lips along his throat, enjoy the soft rasp of his stubble. Only a small portion of his neck is exposed to her, but she takes full advantage, pressing open mouthed kisses and little nips wherever she can, paying special attention to whatever she does that causes the hands at her sides to tighten against her. Under her tongue, she can feel his pulse beating wildly against his throat. Here, she can smell the sweat of his skin, all of the carefully controlled force, and the familiar musk of him. He tastes even better.

Latching onto the spot below his ear earns another groan, this one clearly heard. She pauses just for a moment, hoping the sound hasn't carried too far upwards. But there is enough distance and enough of the ship between them and the Child that she barely senses its mind, all she can really tell is that it is ok. Which means it is safe enough to try out what she really wants to do - lips moving to catch at the Mandalorian's earlobe, sucking it between her teeth and nibbling.

He only jolts a little this time at the sensation, but he continues to move restlessly beneath her as she devotes herself to the task. His hands sweep up and down along her spine, until they tangle in her hair. He tugs at the locks so gently she almost might have missed it, but she takes the hint and draws away, giving the Mandalorian the chance to do the same to her. He takes his time, running his nose and jaw along with soft skin of her throat until she's shivering with it. Only then does he brush his lips along her jawline, pressing a kiss right beneath her chin before repeating his actions on the other side. Her ears aren't quite as sensitive as his are, but she still feels little tingles running through her as he traces along the outer shell of one with his tongue.

Her own clothing leaves a little more of her neck exposed, and he works his way down to where her neck meets her shoulder and closes his mouth around it, teeth sinking in so slowly and gently it's like pulling at a string that winds up her whole body. When he shifts down to suck at her collarbone she feels a familiar ache starting to build. Without quite realizing it, she starts to press her hips forward against him. She's not even sure he'd notice through all his layers, but whether he notices or not he suddenly moves beneath her.

She doesn't know quite how it's happened, but he's managed to flip their relative positions. She's half laying on the bunk, her legs hanging over the edge and splayed around his hips, while he hovers above her, careful not to put any of his weight on her. While she appreciates his thoughtfulness, she misses the feeling of him pressed against her. Though she isn't given long to miss it before a single gloved hand runs delicately along the front of her. He carefully touches the skin of her neck, right where she can still feel the gentle imprints of his teeth, then sliding across her shoulder and down her arm. He briefly explores her hand and fingers as she can practically feel his eyes running over her. She's not quite sure what he'll find there, but he seems to like whatever it is he sees, his breathing is just as ragged now as it had been when she nibbled at his throat. She takes the hand in hers and places it between her breasts, where he's sure to feel her heart racing even through the thick leather of his gloves.

When she releases his hand he draws it down along the softness of her stomach and across her ribs, touch featherlight through the thin fabric of her blouse as she arches up into him. She can feel her nipples drawing tight beneath her shirt and wonders just how much he is able to see.

The hand exploring her tentatively brushes along the side of one breast and then she's dragging him down to kiss her once more. She draws his lower lip between her teeth, biting down carefully into its plushness before soothing it with her Mandalorian plants his hand more firmly onto her ribcage so he can kiss her back more thoroughly, tongue no longer tentative as it explores every bit of her mouth within reach, every taste sending a fresh wave of syrupy heat to pool in her belly. Her legs and arms tangle with his own, attempting to draw him closer, pulling him more firmly between her legs, even though his armor presses uncomfortably against her. She's not even sure what she wants, other than more of him, closer.

But instead, he draws back from her, taking away his wonderful mouth and putting way too much distance between them. She practically whines at the loss, and she can hear him chuckling above her.

"There's one other thing I've been wanting to do…."

Mando drops to kneel on the floor at the foot of her bunk, armor clanking loudly against the hull, but his hands are soft as they inch up her skirt, silently asking permission. It's clear what he's asking her for.

"Yes," she breathes "Mother of Moons, yes…"

She shudders at the feel of gloved hands running soothingly along her ankles and calves as he takes the time to remove her boots. She'd probably been digging them into his legs earlier when she tried to pull him closer, but still she marvels at the care he takes with her. He bends down to plant a teasing kiss at each ankle before moving upwards, lifting her skirts slowly and brushing his lips along every inch of newly revealed skin. She doesn't remember the insides of her knees ever being quite so sensitive, but she nearly kicks at his back at the sensation of his mouth there.

Even more maddening is the feel of his stubble dragging along along the delicate skin of her inner thighs, which he goes back to soothe with lips and tongue until she feels like she'll vibrate out of her skin before he even touches her. His hands continue to push her skirts up further and further, until they're pooled at her waist, above where she knows he can see her excitement soaking through her thin underclothes. He pauses here, breathing deeply, before sliding his hands under her waistband to draw the garment down and off her legs. She doesn't know where they end up, and she almost has half a notion he's tucked them onto his person before she's distracted once more.

Gloved hands are pressing carefully against her thighs, encouraging her to spread them further, the cool air of the ship shocking against where she's already warm and wet for him. She's half trembling when he shifts back between her legs, warm breath tickling against her bare skin. But he simply resumes his kisses against her left thigh, occasionally nipping at the soft flesh there. Her hands are clutching at skirts, not so much holding them up as holding herself back, to keep herself from hurrying him, from dragging that teasing mouth to where she needs him most. He asked her for this and she's not going to rush his enjoyment, even if he's slowly driving her insane with it.

She can feel his pleasure too, this close with skin against skin. She luxuriates in it, the way his mind is spread open to her as her body opens to him, so clearly she can almost taste herself on his lips. When he moves his mouth to kiss at her other thigh, and further up to kiss right below her navel, she can feel slight amusement that radiates off of him, avenging himself for her teasing the night before.

But then his mouth is right there, and it's all she can do to keep her legs from closing around his head as he drags his tongue against where she's open and wet for him. He's still got one hand gripping at her thigh while his other arm shifts to press across her belly, holding her steady as his tongue finally reaches her clit on its third pass, her hips bucking uselessly against his hold on her. The Mandalorian focuses in on that spot, alternating broad swipes of his tongue and teasing kisses before bending down to open her up with his tongue, groaning like he loves the taste of her.

She's not sure what kinds of noises she's making herself, but she's well past the point of worrying. Her hands have found their way back into his hair, her nails scraping against his scalp as he hums contentedly against her, like he could do this forever. Amira isn't sure she'll survive that long. She can feel her inner walls clenching with each thrust and lap of his tongue inside her, her whole body thrumming with need.

And he shouldn't be this good at it. Yesterday was the first time he had so much as kissed someone, and now he's taking apart piece by piece with his mouth. And she knows he's experienced in other ways but this feels like something different. It feels like an act of worship, and her body quakes with the thought.

Her stomach muscles are already shaking when he moves back up to mouth at her clit, circling it with his tongue before sucking at the little bundle of nerves. Her hands tighten in his hair as her legs wrap around his broad shoulders, dragging him ever closer.

"Please…" she half begs. She wishes she could cry out his name, his real one, the one that flashes into her mind whenever she calls to him, but he hasn't given it to her to use yet. Now it is her own name that runs through his thoughts - her full name, his nickname for her, chanted like a prayer.

She can fear herself nearing the precipice, each little lick and hum winding her body tighter and tighter. She can feel herself start to lift off the bunk, only his strong forearm managing to hold her in place as he continues his relentless onslaught. Her legs are trembling with the effort to hold him in place, though there's no chance of him moving - pleasure radiating off him in waves. Amira wonder is getting a taste of her own pleasure back, whether he has any idea how open he is to her right now or whether he even cares. He's lost completely in the task of bringing her over the edge.

He draws it out a little longer though, reaching down to plunge his tongue inside her once more, again and again. And it's so much, but not quite enough, and he knows it. But before she so much as relaxes back into the bunk, he's right back where he needs her, building a steady rhythm against her clit.

She nearly screams at the briefest scrape of his teeth against her and then he's pulling back, mumbling apologies into her, but she is the opposite of hurt, tugging at his hair to pull his mouth back onto her.

"Don't stop…"

She never wants him to stop, but she's so close. She just needs a little more, and her fingers grasp at his hair just for something to hold onto it. She knows she's pulling a little too hard, but the Mandalorian just groans into her, and the vibrations are enough to send her careening over the edge. His mouth stays on her throughout her shaking climax, gentling against her as she comes back down.

Her hands finally loosen their hold on his hair as she drifts into afterglow, fingers running mindlessly through the strands and petting at his head. He gives her a few gentle parting licks, as if reluctant to remove his mouth from her, but she catches his face in her hands, stroking her palms along his cheeks as she tries to catch her breath.

"You…" she starts, completely lost for words, "so…", but she has no idea where to even begin so she just keeps running her hands along her cheeks and jaw.

"You're so, as well." He teases her, voice husky and deeper than she's ever heard it before, as he kisses her wrist to atone for his teasing words. But he can't seem to help himself, "Not too bad for a rookie, huh?", he asks as he kisses each of her fingers.

She can't even begin to respond to that, just laughs until she runs out of breath and her stomach muscles protest any additional movements.

"You're wonderful," she manages, breathlessly.

The Mandalorian just nuzzles at her hip, face heated from her praise. He rests against her bare skin for several long minutes, both of them needing a moment to catch their breath, before pulling back to set her skirts to rights around her. Sensing that she is not going to be moving again any time soon, he crawls up over her to retrieve his helmet. But he places a parting kiss against her forehead before replacing his armor. It's a promise to return safely, return to them as soon as he can.


	4. Chapter 3

Something was wrong.

Amira had the ship read out the time - it was nearing the hour the Mandalorian and the villagers should have been returning home. But something was wrong, she felt it in every part of her body, the sudden burn of adrenaline rushing through her veins. Nearby, the Child sensed it too.

She dresses quickly, shoving her feet into her boots without unfastening them first. She considers leaving the Child within the safety of the ship, but she was already torn between its cries within her mind and whatever had happened out there. So she bundled it up as well before stumbling from the ship, barely remembering to close the rampway behind her.

With the Child in her arms they move swiftly along the path to the village she had previously mapped out in her own mind, but once they reached it she is forced to slow down. The Mandalorian is here, she knows that much, but she is not sure where, or what is wrong. She moves along the streets as quickly as she is able to without risking falling or running into something, but the amount of noise coming from the returning villagers is distracting. Her shoulders brush against several people who are hastening somewhere themselves, and no apologies are offered on either side. But eventually she is recognized.

"You came with the Mandalorian." It is not a question, "he is with N'jnaro now, you will come with me."

Amira is not overly fond of strangers guiding her but she willingly takes the woman's hand - likely one of the returning warriors, based on the gloves she wears - and allows herself to be led quickly to the source of her distress. They are moving too quickly for conversation, though Amira manages to gasp out something like a question about what has happened - but the woman either doesn't know or doesn't wish to answer.

They stop soon enough, near to where she can sense her companion more clearly. Here the woman hands her off to another older woman, who introduces herself as Mithya, the wife of N'jnaro, as she guides Amira through their home. They are apparently elders in the village and have seen to the care of the Mandalorian, but still she does not say what happened.

The scent of copper and char and bacta hits her the moment she enters the room.

"He took most of the blaster fire as our warriors were getting out, and was thrown back onto the burning equipment." N'jnaro, she thinks, explains as she moves towards where the Mandalorian is lying unconscious. "One of our men pulled him from the flames but he was very badly burned. We treated him with all of the bacta we could spare, but he would not let us remove his helmet, and now he's…"

And now he was entirely unconscious, and she could sense where he wasn't healing as he needed to. Amira wanted to reach out to him, to feel for herself what was wrong, but the Child squirmed in her grasp and it was all she could do to hold on to it.

"I will take the baby to another room," Mithya offered kindly, reaching out to take hold of the Child, paper-soft arms brushing against Amira's own.

"Wait…"

Amira isn't entirely sure what's she's doing, or whether it was really her idea at all, but she's kneeling down beside the bed in front of her and letting go. The Child moves out of her arms easily, todding over to where she knows the Mandalorian lays.

And then she feels it happening. It's like cool water flowing over her skin, counteracting the fire beneath and making her feel at ease. No, not her, but the Mandalorian, though she can feel it too. The smell of fire and blood dissipates, and she knows the burned flesh is gone with it. She can feel all of the energy in the room flowing towards the Mandalorian, until the Child suddenly falls back into her arms, seemingly drained of all its strength, but it's ok. They're both ok. Amira nearly collapses herself in relief.

She pulls the sleeping Child back against her but doesn't move from where she is still kneeling. She reaches out the hand not clasping the Child to her out to touch the Mandalorian's bare arm, where he is healed and whole in front of her. It is the first time she has touched him without all of his armor in the way and she hopes he'll forgive her need to reassure herself he's still there. Her hand slides down to feel the pulse at his inner elbow, which is steady beneath her fingertips and growing stronger.

"Praise Mithran!" is all their hosts say about what just happened, and thankfully they don't ask any questions about the Child. They simply watch over them for a little bit longer, quietly slipping away just as the Mandalorian shows signs of coming back to consciousness.

The first sign is the tensing of the arm muscles beneath her fingers. Amira tries to draw back her arm but the Mandalorian catches her wrist tightly with his hand. Then the sound of a helmet shifting, his head turning towards them.

"'Mira?" he rasps out, grip on her wrist loosening. "Where is…"

She uncurls from around the Child, knowing immediately what he is asking. She can feel him sink back into the bed when he sees them both clearly.

"You were supposed to stay on the ship."

"We thought something was wrong…" Amira tries to explain, clasping at his hand now that her wrist is free.

"Then you were supposed to hit the autopilot and get to safety. We have a plan in place."

"No, _you _have a plan in place." This is not how she wants any of this conversation to go, so she tries a new tack, "how are we supposed to help you?"

"You're not."

She can sense his rebukes are more exhausted than angry, but all of her previous worry has sapped her of her patience.

"If we hadn't come you would still be lying here unconscious with third degree burns - you might not have even been alive to yell at us." Amira recognizes that she's the one that's practically yelling, but she can't seem to stop herself.

"I'm not -" he deflates, "if I don't make it…"

"You're not allowed to die on us." It comes out half command, half plea.

"I can't promise that." He offers back, with less force than earlier. "But I need to know you two are safe. I need you to leave me if I can't get back to you."

"Well I can't promise that." She swiftly turns his words back on him, and is surprised when this is not met with more commands but instead with a deep sigh. Normally they were fairly well matched in stubbornness, on the rare occasions she chose to argue with him, but she could feel his exhaustion winning out even over his concern. She could feel some of the fight draining from her as well - it was too much to hold on to after the morning they had had.

"We're safe here now," her voice gentles, "why don't you rest some more. We can all go back to the ship when you wake up."

Without quite intending to, her mind reaches out to the Mandalorian's, nudging at his own exhaustion until he finally seems to see the value in her plan and allows himself to sink back into sleep. As he drifts off, she realizes he is still holding her hand.

* * *

The Mandalorian sleeps through the rest of the day, clearly needing the rest. Amira is finally lured out of the bedroom by Mithya demanding she eat something, and she allows the old woman and her husband fuss over the sleeping Child as they share the kitchen. Their own grandchildren, twin girls, apparently lived in the next village over and were nearly grown already. Amira well understood their urge to hold onto the Child for a while.

By the time she returns to the Mandalorian, she can already hear the sounds of celebration trickling in from the streets outside. Now that all the returning warriors seem to have recovered (N'jnaro mentioned there were no losses from their own village at least, though several had been injured), everyone seems to be outside enjoying their victory. Or perhaps it was merely another evening of the bonfire festival. The spicy smell of burning unghar wood drifts through the rooms window, along with the smell of rich foods, just as N'gantu had described. She would have to ask N'jnaro and Mithya what was going on.

But by the time their hosts returned to the room, the sounds from outside had changed, and an unfamiliar presence had seeped into the surroundings. It was N'jnaro who spoke first.

"The thieves have come to the village, they're demanding the Tridedlanite and they're threatening our people to get it."

"They're already trying to set fire to Mithran's temple" Mithya added with undisguised contempt, "the animals…"

"We should get you two and your Mandalorian out of the village, he has done as he promised for us and this is not your fight," her husband suggests, more calmly.

"How many are there?" Amira asks, torn between accepting the offered escape and knowing they should offer help if they can.

"Nearly 20, and our own weapons are still depleted." N'jnaro explains, indicating that the village will not be able to mount much of a resistance with or without the Mandalorian. She can hear Mithya fervently praying behind him. "They are still clustered near the temple at the center of the village, we can maybe get by them undetected if we leave now..."

Amira's mind searches outwards, past N'jnaro's concerns and Mithya's prayers, feeling the villagers' fear and its source - the rage and greed of the men so near to them it physically hurt just to touch their minds. Though close as they were, they might still be able to get away. But beneath the rage and the fear outside she hears a low hum coming from the stones of the houses that surrounded them, a sound that keeps her from retreating back to her own mind. Sometimes she could sense when a place had been touched by many beings, but this was different - it felt as though she was being called by the sound. Past the thieves' minds to something just beyond them.

It was unlike the houses, though it too felt like old stone, only even more ancient. It was buried beneath many heavy layers of time, but still it sung out to her. She found herself reaching out to it, without fully understanding why, but it felt like it was what was needed. Her mind seemed to grasp at it, and she tries to pull it free, like pulling a person from sinking sands.

Distantly, she could hear N'jnaro calling to her, mixed together with his wife's prayers. It only seems to drive her on further. It was heavy work, and her mind was unused to reaching out to another's in this way - though it was not another mind she sought. There was no consciousness there, only an ancient echo. But still the humming grew louder, and she forgot herself and all of their plans to escape in the sound, her entire being focused entirely on pulling the source closer to her.

Only her mind was not strong enough - no sooner had she pulled it free than she felt her own mind sinking back into the sand. Her last thought before she slipped out of consciousness was that she hoped she had done the right thing...


	5. Chapter 4

Amira slowly regains consciousness, weary limbs half collapsed against the Mandalorian's bed. She can feel where he is sitting up, which means he's awake as well. It all starts coming back to her in pieces: the village, the colonists outside, the need to escape…

She tries to scramble back up to standing, but is stopped by a warm hand against her shoulder - Mithya's.

"The colonists have gone, Mithran has saved us," she gently praises - all of her previous fear now replaced with wonder and relief, which floods over Amira as she settles back against the bed.

"Her great statue collapsed on the thieves in front of the temple, and the few that survived left swiftly after." N'jnaro explains, "She has been standing over the village for hundreds of generations - it is truly a miracle."

There is a slightly humorous tone to his voice, and Amira can feel it aimed at herself. She realizes in the moment what she did - what she helped do. It's still not entirely clear exactly how she did it, but N'jnaro seems to understand she was somehow involved. But he and his wife don't question it, apparently happy to take miracles as they come.

"It's been quite a cycle for all of us, it seems," N'jnaro makes a sound with his hands that Amira has no idea how to replicate with only five fingers, "you should rest here for the night. The thieves won't be coming back. What's left of them at least."

"Where is…" Amira begins.

"We put the little one to bed already, in the old nursery just across the hall."

"Thank you." It's the first words the Mandalorian has spoken this entire time, but his polite words have a sense of finality that has their hosts leaving them for their own room. With only a quick "we're just down the hall if you have any need of us", Amira and the Mandalorian are left on their own.

A long silence follows. Amira stretches out her legs across the smooth floor, trying to shake the pins and needles from her lower half. Her side still rests heavily against the low bed, and she fights the urge to seek out her companion by touch. So much has happened so quickly, and it's tempting to reach for his solid presence. But she can tell from the heat of the blankets beneath her arm that he is still without his armor, and touching his bare skin right now would only add to dizziness that's still swirling through her head.

Her mind feels as though it's full of sand. She has never tried to touch anything inorganic like that, and she's not sure she'll ever attempt it again. Something there must have helped her - perhaps their goddess, or at least their belief in her. She never could have pulled down a statue big enough to crush over at least a dozen men on her own. At least she doesn't think she could have.

The sound of a long breath cuts through her thoughts and clears some of the sand from her mind. She can sense that her companion is about to ask what their hosts didn't dare to.

"Did the kid do all that?"

"Not exactly…" she's not quite sure she can even explain it herself.

"...did you?"

"Some of it." It's an honest answer, at least, if a little vague. She's a little vague on the details herself.

"Have you -" she can sense the start of a hundred different questions in his mind, but he settles for "has it happened before?"

She's not quite sure how to answer, so she tries for something to lighten the mood. "You don't get a 40,000 credit bounty on your head from being an Outer Rim diplomat's assistant."

"Hm." Is all the response she gets, and she can feel more questions swirling between them. She expects him to ask her what exactly she did, or how she did it - questions she can barely answer herself. But he doesn't. He doesn't ask any of the questions she imagines. In fact he doesn't ask anything at all for several long minutes. His voice is lower, softer, when he speaks again.

"So when you came with me on my ship, you could have gotten away at any point?"

"I don't…fully have control over it. So not at any point," she admits. "But yes, I probably could have escaped."

"Why didn't you?"

"More would have come for me," this, she knows for certain, "and you seemed nice enough."

He had been nothing like she expected a bounty hunter to be. There was no greed in him, no love of the chase or of violence. Just a strong sense of duty and a fierce protectiveness - she would later discover what he was so protective of. And there was a loneliness there too, one that matched her own.

"I'm not...I'm not a good man."

She turned towards the sound of his voice, waiting until she could feel him looking at her before she answered, "you're a better man than you think you are."

She paused, hoping to let her words sink in. Even coming as they were from a woman who was perhaps not so good as he once thought. But she felt no fear, no hesitancy coming from the man beside her. If anything, his sense of protectiveness only seemed to grow, settling around her like a comfortable blanket. But there is something else there too.

Before she can begin to guess at what it is, she hears him shifting, the sound of his breathing reaching her ears more clearly than before. He had removed his helmet.

"Are you hurt under there?" She jumps to ask - he had kept his helmet on the entire time he had been tended to. And he hasn't been left alone long enough to treat himself.

"No." His blunt response is softened by the huskiness of his real voice, the lack of modulation.

"You can check, if you're worried," he adds, more quietly.

* * *

And she isn't, not anymore. The smell of char and copper is fading, leaving only the light scent of perspiration and bacta gel. She can sense his pain only as a dull throbbing of stiffness and exhaustion, without the sharpness of real injury. But still he is inviting her to touch his face. To know him in a way she had been denying herself before.

She reaches out for his hands first, and he willingly takes her small hands within his much larger ones and pulls her up onto the bed to sit facing him. The warm, calloused skin she finds there is worth its own exploration, but it would have to wait. Once she is fully seated, her hip pressing into his legs through the blankets between, she allows her hands to carefully drift upwards, barely grazing against his arms and shoulders until they meet their target.

Her hands move to gently cup the sides of his face, at the rough stubble she had felt before but now has permission to explore more fully. The Mandalorian keeps himself perfectly still as her hands begin to brush cautiously across his skin. She guides her fingertips slowly to trace along the edge of his hairline, his ears, the hinge of his jaw. All places she has touched before, but has been careful not to try and put all together in her mind.

She pushes his hair back from his forehead, smoothing across the lines there. He is older than her, though not by much. It's one of her questions answered.

His brows are thick, straight lines leading to two deep furrows where they meet. She imagines his brows coming together in a frown of concentration all too often, though now his face is relaxed where her fingertips slide along the softened lines. There are other lines too, at the corners of his eyes, but these are finer. He doesn't smile nearly so often, which doesn't surprise her. The lines of her own face are not nearly so deep, either.

She can feel the soft flutter of his eyelashes against her fingers as she traces along his closed lids, internally measuring the distance between them and sensing the tiredness there - the obvious bags that a full day's rest don't even begin to diminish. She can't help but try and smooth them away, even though she knows she can't. His own hands move to her sides, just holding her there, not attempting to guide or halt her explorations.

But she can feel his eyes twitching to stay closed beneath her fingers, so she moves on to other parts of his face. She draws a single fingertip down from the furrows of his brow, straight along the lines of his nose and the gentle outward curve of it, before running into the mustache below. She smiles at the memory of how it tickled her lips.

With her thumbs she traces along his strong cheekbones, feeling a small twitch of the muscles beneath. He is trying not to smile, she knows, and she can't help allowing her own smile to widen. More twitching, and she nearly laughs in response, all pretense that she is checking for injuries completely out the window at this point. He is enjoying this nearly as much as she is.

Just to tease him she skips past his mouth, moving back down to his jaw, tracing along the squareness of it that has slowly become more familiar to her. She discovers a small, raised scar right beneath his chin that she wants to press her lips to, but she holds back. There will be a time for that later. She doesn't want to distract herself from the chance to map every centimeter of him, to hold him more firmly within her own mind. So she lets herself memorize the broadness of his chin, the hollows below his cheekbones, the lines around his mouth - his hands clutching more tightly at her sides as she moves inward. The dimples surprise her most of all.

Finally she reaches up to trace along his lips with fingertips still tingling from the rasp of his stubble. She can't seem to stop herself from allowing each finger the chance to run along his cupid's bow, down to the plushness of his lower lip and then back again until he finally reaches up to still her hands. He kisses at each of the captured fingertips before bringing them back to his cheeks, broad hands holding them in place there.

"Satisfied?"

She hums out an affirmative as he presses a kiss to each of her trapped palms. In the silence between them she hears the renewed celebrations from the streets below, the scent of bonfires seeping through the nearby window, which he turns to close and her hands are forced to release him finally. He seems to pause there, looking outside the window.

"We probably only have one more day before someone finds out we're here," he guesses.

And she knows he's probably right.

"Then let's have one day."


	6. Interlude

_"You're a better man than you think you are." _

_He wants to argue with her, to tell her of all the terrible things he has done in his life up 'til now. Remind her that he kidnapped her, had not even questioned what she had already done to deserve it until he had already dragged her lightyears from her home. But he suspects she already knows all of it, has since the beginning. Even from that first moment, when he'd pressed a blaster between her shoulder blades and told her to stay quiet, she's never shown any sign of fear of him. And now, when she tells him she could have gotten away at any time, had she wanted to…_

_He thinks about what he has just witnessed, the blood she's spilled to protect him and how it hasn't tainted the goodness, the innocence he still sees in her. She keeps taking him by surprise, this girl. He can hear in her voice and in her carefully light answers that she's worried this revelation might change the way he thinks of her, or even scare him off. And it should - it should bother him that she or the blasted kid could kill him with no more than a thought, and who knew what else she was even capable of? If she even knew herself? But somehow he knew, knew whatever it was that she could do she would never hurt him. And maybe that's what she could see in him too, had seen in him even before he could. He glances briefly to the closed door behind her before tugging off his helmet, trying to say without words that he sees her too, and isn't afraid._

_But of course this girl continues to surprise him, and takes it in another way entirely. "Are you hurt under there?"_

_He holds back a sigh._

_"No." It comes a little more clipped than he means it to, but now he's completely at a loss for a way to communicate her that what just happened changes nothing for him. That he still trusts her, still wants her here next to him. That he's seen her for what she is and is isn't running away._

_Perhaps there is one way._

* * *

_The Mandalorian is well aware that there is no other way of thinking of it, that this goes well beyond a mere technical loophole. He is breaking the code. He knows this as surely as he knows that will still put his helmet back on afterwards, because his duty to the people in his care is not yet over._

_But she has already so thoroughly disarmed him, stripped away all of his weapons and all of his armor until he can no longer be called a Mandalorian - with her he is just a man. And the thought of it is like air in his lungs after so long underwater, for a moment he is free. And in this moment he wants her to see him, see all of him. _

_He manages not to jump at the first touch of her hands at his face. She's touched him this much before, at least. Though he's not certain he'll ever grow immune to it, the feeling of her small hands pressed against skin that no longer remembers any touch but his own. Her touch is like sunshine against his face, soft and warm and impossible not to lean into. But he doesn't want to rush this, wants to give her free rein to touch him as she pleases. So he sits as still as he can, letting her hip press into his thigh more firmly, and allows her to map out his features at her own pace. _

_And he watches her too, at first. He's always watching her, but he's never had the chance to study her so closely without the distraction of her lips on his. She's even more beautiful up close, her features even more delicate in the dying light of the day and her expression soft as ever. He recognizes the slight downward tilt of her head she gets whenever she's focusing - the one he's learned means she can sense him more clearly than the rare times her pale eyes are aimed directly at him. He's always marveled at her focus, the seemingly endless patience she has for the kid and this life he's dragged her into. Though not for him, of course. With him she is all patience until suddenly she isn't, a deep well of fierce stubbornness erupting whenever he ignores her warnings, or treats her in any way like a child. Sometimes she's even more beautiful in her temper._

_And she's certainly not a child, even though she may appear one at first glance. As her fingers trace along the deeply etched lines of his forehead, his eyes find the small lines that mark her own face, mostly only visible in such close proximity. She is not so young that her expression has not been touched by grief, though she is still young enough that is hard not to regret that she's been pulled into his mess. _

_And yet, somehow, he can't bring himself to fully regret it. _

_Not with her sitting beside him, soft fingers smoothing over his brows and the feel of the first press of her lips to that spot still so fresh in his memory. It was one of so many things he had never even allowed himself to want before. And then she came into his life and offered it all so easily - her conversation, her concern for him, her touch. He wasn't used to being looked after, cared for, hadn't been for a long time now. And it's not exactly easy now, not with how much he feels that he should be the one keeping her and the kid out of danger, and not the other way around. But he knows they both saved him today, and perhaps it's not so bad being in their debt. Not if it means letting the kid be spoiled by N'jnaro and his wife, and allowing Amira's soft touch to assure them they've both come out unscathed. _

_His eyes flutter shut without him really thinking about it as her fingertips trace downward over the shape of his eyes and nose. He tries to keep his expression neutral still - he's not sure what his expression usually is but this seems like what should be done. He realizes it's not often he considers his own face, and for the first time he worries whether she'll like what she finds there. He wishes his eyes were still open, so he could catch her reaction. He thinks to himself that has no idea what she might like - the only time he's ever seen her show interest was with the Arkanian from the tavern. He tries not to grimace at the thought._

_His hands move up to grasp at her sides, reminding himself she's still there with him. She had chosen him that day in the tavern, and the next day too. She had come back with him and she had kissed him - more than once. It was more than just giving him something she thought had missed out on, if she wanted to kiss him a second time. Even if she didn't know what he looked like there must be something about him she liked enough to kiss him once more. Still, a small part of him wants her to think of him as handsome, even if he's nothing compared to her._

_He slants his eyes open just in time to catch her running her finger along his mustache, a small smile playing on her face. Maybe she does like his face well enough. He remembers he had actually considered shaving after their first kiss, but she seemed not to mind his scruffiness. And then she certainly appreciated it other places, so he's glad he left it. And now she's smiling at him like she's remembering the same thing, and it takes everything in him not to grin in response._

_But then she's stroking along his cheekbones and her smile is growing wider, and he can feel the small tremors running through her like she's barely holding in a laugh. He's not quite sure what inspired it, but he can't help but smile a little himself at her, at how easily she expresses her joy in front of him. Smiles are rare in the Outer Rim, and most beings out here keep their feelings fairly well guarded, but it's as if she never learned how to. All the same, she was never smiling in any of the old holos he had seen of her, and sometimes he allows himself to believe that her smiles are for him alone - well, him and the kid. Even he can't resist the occasional smile at the little womp rat._

_But his smile grows a little more exasperated when Amira skips past his mouth and down to his jawline. He recognizes she's teasing him again, making him anticipate the soft press of her fingers against his lips even more. And it's working - she knows him all too well. But still it's nice to watch the smile that never leaves her face as she runs her fingers along the rough stubble at his jaw, pausing thoughtfully when she discovers one or another of his scars. He's thankful she doesn't seem too put off by it - if she continues downward she's bound to find many more patches of uneven skin, evidence of his life as a bounty hunter._

_But she doesn't move any further than his adam's apple before she's finally reaching up to run delicate fingers across his lips. And he can feel every nerve lighting up beneath the slow path of her movements, lips tingling in their wake. It's impossible to avoid thinking about the memory of her own lips there, the sweet press of her mouth against his. How she drew her further in with each kiss, and how hard it was to pull away from her each time. His own hands can't stop running along her sides and back, struggling not to pull her in closer, bring their lips together once more. He almost imagines he can feel each tiny whorl of her fingertips there now, he's so sensitized to her every touch. _

_It's bordering on too much, and so finally he reaches up to grasp her hands so he can kiss each of her fingertips, pulling her hands closer so her can press his tingling lips more firmly against her small palms. He barely recognizes the voices that comes out of him._

_"Satisfied?"_


	7. Chapter 5

_"We probably only have one more day before someone finds out we're here." _

_"Then let's have one day." _

She can feel him turning back to face her, and she takes the opportunity to slide her hands back up to his shoulders, bared to her for the first time and broader beneath all that armor than she imagined. She nearly frowns at the thought that this means the beskar is not as thick as she formerly believed, but now is not the time for either of their worries. If they only have one more day of safety and rest she wants to make it count. The smell of woodfire and spices still fills the room and leaves them both feeling a little dizzy and a bit bolder.

He takes the initiative this time, leaning in to capture her lips, but Amira holds him steady with a gentle hand. Instead she draws herself up to kiss along the path her hands had just taken, brushing across the lines of his forehead, and feeling them relax ever so slightly beneath the press of her lips. Drawing over his brows and to the deep furrows between, which never fully disappear. The corners of his eyes, across his cheeks, and even the tip of his nose - she nearly laughs at the confusion she feels radiating off of him at the gesture. He tries to bring their lips together once more but as she had done before, and as she had done in their first kiss, she skips down to his jaw to try and find the scar she wanted to kiss earlier.

She finds it easily, tucked beneath his chin just as she remembers it. Against her lips it feels like nothing more than a small interruption to the stubble of his jaw, but she hopes that it conveys to him that she wants to know all of him - that she _wants_ all of him.

He seems to understand this, or at least he is willing to tilt his chin back and endure the chaste press of her lips against such a vulnerable spot, only moving to rest his broad hands against the top of her hips. But when she attempts to continue her earlier teasing she can feel him growl against her, tugging her easily into his lap and catching her in a far less chaste kiss, tongue slipping immediately past her lips, seeking out her own. Sometimes it's easy for her to forget his strength with how carefully he touches her, how gentle he is with _Yoruba_ , but it's impossible to ignore how easily he can move her around, or the muscles she can feel tensing beneath the blankets. Her hands reach out to grasp at his arms, delighting in their strength even as he is so careful not to crush her to him.

Though for all the heat of their kiss, there's no sense of urgency to it. He kisses her as if they have all the time in the world, taking time to explore every part of her mouth, even running his tongue over each of her teeth. She takes this as a chance to capture his tongue and suck gently at it, which earns her a deep groan as the Mandalorian pulls her even closer.

Amira uses the little space left between them to run her hands along his broad chest and back, nibbling at his lips and enjoying all the little sounds she can draw out of the man beneath her. Especially the small grunt when her fingers encounter a nipple, though this seems more than anything to inspire him to start tugging at her blouse.

She realizes she's still fully dressed and he's more than likely completely naked beneath the softly woven blankets. She definitely wants to explore that more, but for now she needs to lift her arms or end up tangled in her shirt. Once it's over her head and tossed to some other part of the room, she can feel him draw back to look at her.

"How do you get this off?"

Amira has to laugh a little at his confusion. She had forgotten that in her hurry to get to the village she had simply thrown her clothes over her nightdress. It was the same one she had been wearing when he had kidnapped her, and it wasn't exactly the kind of practical day clothing they had picked up for her along their journey. Instead it was of rich Karlini silk, soft and delicate and with a dozen tiny straps along her neck and down her shoulders. It wasn't nearly the puzzle that it appeared, but it couldn't exactly be removed with her skirts still wrapped around her waist.

"Let me…" she twists around so that she can reach down and tug off her boots, first of all.

This apparently causes her to wiggle against the Mandalorian's lap, making him groan above her. Her smile only widens as she does it again on purpose, even though the angle was all wrong to give any satisfaction to either of them. He gets back at her by bending down to kiss at the back of her neck and run warm hands down along her bare spine, distracting her from the task of removing her socks.

Once freed, the Mandalorian pulls her upright again, easily shifting her so that she is now straddling his lap. She is surprised to find how much she is enjoying him manhandling her into position, something that she used to find disorienting - but he was always so careful and pauses to let her adjust each time. Plus, he always seems to move her exactly where she wants to be. And right now there is nowhere she'd rather be than spread across his lap - though perhaps with a little less clothing between them.

"You'll also need to-" she trails off as she pulls his hands from her hips around to the ties of her skirts. Her own hands go to her hair, tugging it out of the soft braids that keep her hair from tangling in the night.

"My armor isn't even this complicated," he huffs out as she feels him struggling to loosen the tiny knots at her waist.

She tries and fails to hold in her laughter. "Switch?"

Her fingers are smaller, and used to working at the knots of her skirts. Meanwhile his hands feel much nicer running through her hair, combing out the ends of her braids and allowing her hair to fall loosely around her face. She unwinds her skirts easily and allows them to fall off the side of the bed, leaving her only in her thin nightdress with her hair unbound.

Amira can feel his eyes moving over her, as his hands finish combing through her locks and sliding down to her bared arms. One hand runs along the thin straps at her shoulder to the top edge of her nightdress, slipping a finger just underneath and running it along the top of her breast until he's halted by another strap. She can feel her nipples pebbling against the thin silk and knows her can see her reaction to his touch. She can almost hear him grinning.

"You still haven't told me how to get you out of this."

By way of explaining she tugs both hands down to the hem of her nightdress, which has ridden up to her mid thighs. She guides him to slide the dress upwards, and he makes sure to drag his wonderfully roughened hands along the soft skin of her thighs and sides as each new part of her is exposed. Every touch brings a fresh wave of heat and anticipation to pool in her belly. The complex straps glide easily over her raised arms as the nightdress is pulled off completely and discarded somewhere with the rest of her clothes. Now she is only left in a small pair of underwear and with just the blanket to separate them otherwise.

She'll never get used to being looked at rather than touched in moments like these, but she doesn't feel the least self-conscious beneath his gaze. He had patiently allowed her to map along his face, she can return the favor now - even if she would far prefer him to use his hands rather than his eyes to learn the shape of her.

"_Beautiful,"_ is all he says before his lips are at her neck, his hands running featherlight along her rib cage.

It's his turn to tease her now, lightly tracing along the undersides of her breasts as careful teeth scrape along her collarbone. Touching her like she's something precious and delicate.

"I won't break, you know." She isn't sure how much of his gentleness is for her and how much of it is just his own methodical nature.

"You can, but I won't let you," his voice rumbles meaningfully against her ear, where he's moved to bite a little more firmly at the side of her neck in deference to her pleas. She gasps at the slight sting of it, and the wonderful tingling sensation it sends down all of her limbs and straight into her core. His touch grows firmer but the excruciating pace of it stays the same.

"I won't let you break either…" Amira manages to breath out, in a much softer voice than she had intended.

But he doesn't argue with her, moving instead to kiss her once more. Her arms wind their way around his neck to hold him to her, as his hands finally cease their teasing touches and move to cup more firmly at her breasts. Her moan is swallowed up by their kiss, but she can tell he heard it anyway by the smile that grows against her lips, and the way his thumbs stretch up to trace along the edge of her nipples, drawing even more sounds from her.

She can't help but push her chest more firmly into his hands, bringing their bodies even closer together and reveling in all the newly bared skin between them. This also allows her to feel where he's already hard against her stomach. She grinds a little against him, and she can feel more than hear the groan that follows, but he shifts her back so he can bend down to mouth at the curve of her breasts. Her hands go immediately to his hair, half holding him in place half petting at him in encouragement to keep going. She's lost entirely in the sensation of his tongue flicking at her nipples and the tug of his lips against them, with just the barest hint of teeth. She wishes she could rock against him again but he's too far away. As his hand moves up give attention to her neglected breast she has to cover her mouth to keep from making too much noise. The others are asleep already but not so far away that they wouldn't hear the sounds her body longs to make.

The Mandalorian doesn't show any signs of tiring of this task, and Amira is reminded once again that this is probably the first time he's ever been able to put his mouth to someone else's chest. She knows it's a pretty heady sensation from both ends, but she's definitely the one going crazy with the way he's mapping out every single inch of her breasts, figuring out what makes her whole body shake with feeling of it. She could probably come just from this, she realizes, and is half tempted to let him go on as long as he seems to want to.

But beneath her he's all heat and solid muscle, and she's torn by the feeling of wanting to explore more of him too. It's with a pang of regret that she finally pulls him back, dragging him up into another kiss.

She's still a little shaky as she runs her hands down along his chest and shoulders, mapping out the smooth expanse of warm skin and hard muscle in her mind. She moves to nuzzle at the side of his neck, where she can feel the ends of his hair have grown damp with exertion. His scent fills her nose, her senses overwhelmed by him, but still she tries to catalog every sensation into her mental map of him. The feel of his hips jolting beneath her, hands tightening at the curve of her waist as her teeth graze at his shoulder. The taste of his skin at the hollow of his throat. The way he doesn't react as strongly as she does to gentle fingers plucking at his nipples, but how he does tense up deliciously at a firm bite to his pectorals.

To her mental picture she also adds the star shaped scar near his shoulder, the feel of his heartbeat beneath her lips and palm, a little sped up to match the quickness of his breath above her. Another scar, longer, along his ribs, beneath where his armor sits. She takes the time to kiss along each bit of uneven keloid tissue, reassuring herself that he's made it through each time.

She's brought out of these heavy thoughts as she attempts to kiss at a small scar along his side only to feel him twitch at her touch, a soft exhalation sounding above her. It was not a sound of pain.

"Are you ticklish?" She grins up at him, fingers brushing against his other side. He twitches again.

"No."

His voice is low and there's an attempted edge of menace to it, which is lost entirely to the fact that she now knows she has him completely powerless beneath her fingertips. But instead of conquering him with this new knowledge, she simply files that little piece of information away for a later time.

Still she can't help smiling at the little jump of muscles beneath his skin as she lightly traces over his abdomen - only tiny scars to be found here, nothing that worries her. But he groans once more as her fingers run through the trail of coarse hair that leads beneath the blankets.

"Is this alright?" She tests.

"_Yes._"

She shifts up a little so that she's facing him now as her hand dips below the blanket, finding him hot and hard beneath her fingers as she traces along the length of him. He cups at the back of her neck, pulling her into another kiss as her hand closes around him. She breathes in sharply when her fingers don't quite meet, but to keep him from being too smug about her response she gives him a firm stroke, drawing out an even louder gasp from him. Her thumb swipes up to spread the little beads of moisture at the tip downwards, allowing her fingers to slide smoothly along him. Each small stroke makes his breathing grow harder and the hands at her waist and neck to tighten.

She's barely started building up a rhythm before he's pushing her hands away, his hands grasping at the back of her thighs and pulling her upwards onto her knees until his stubble is brushing against her stomach. She manages to steady herself with her hands clutching at his shoulders, but the feel of him nuzzling and kissing at the soft skin of her belly is completely unbalancing.

His tongue dips into her navel and she nearly falls forward, but he manages to keep her upright. It's even harder to remain steady when he noses along the delicate edges of her underwear, and she is in no way prepared for the sensation of him kissing her through the fabric, where she can feel her desire already soaking through the thin material. When he pushes the fabric aside to lick at her right where she needs him most she actually does fall forward - and catches herself on the stone wall behind the bed. The stone is smooth and cool beneath her hands but his mouth is hot against her, and when he starts suckling at her clit she bends to press a burning cheek against the cool surface. One of her hands goes down to wind itself back into his hair.

"How are you so good at this?" She whispers against the wall, but he manages to hear her all the same. She can feel him shiver slightly against her.

"You're so good to me…" Another shiver, another piece of information to tuck away for later. She's half tempted to explore that now, but there are hands digging into her ass and bringing her more firmly against his face so that his tongue can lap into her, and she's lost for words.

Her legs are already shaking when his tongue returns to her clit, but then one of his hands presses forward to dip a finger into her core and she can no longer stay upright. The Mandalorian keeps her from falling back too hard, but she ends up sprawled backwards across his legs, knees still tucked beneath her, and breath coming out in harsh pants.

She can't even begrudge him the soft chuckle she hears as he moves to rearrange them. He gently pulls her legs to stretch out along the bed, bringing the pillow to the opposite side of the bed so she can rest her head back against it. He shifts over her, all his earlier exhaustion and soreness apparently gone now, to tug off the last remaining piece of clothing between them. His lips return to her breasts and her hips buck into the hand that reaches between her legs to cup her. One deliciously thick finger eases into her and she can feel her inner muscles tightening around it. The Mandalorian practically growls into the underside of her breast.

Her head turns to hide the sounds she's making into the pillow as she feels another finger enter her, both of them curling upwards and stroking towards her abdomen. She can feel her knees drawing up as his fingers wind her tighter and tighter. His lips return to her nipples and she can feel her nails digging into his shoulders but he doesn't seem to mind it one bit. Her hips are rocking against his hand, seeking to ease the building ache between her legs. She just needs a little more...

The Mandalorian trails his lips down her body once again, down to where his fingers are working steadily against her, stopping to breathe in the scent of her arousal. And it's so, so tempting to let him keep going. But before he can bring his mouth back down to her she halts him with a soft hand to his shoulder. She can feel his questioning look.

"I want you up here with me. Inside me."

She can feel a slight shudder run through him as her words reach him. He places a parting kiss to the soft curls of her mound before shifting up over her once more - she tries not to whine at the feeling of his fingers leaving her but his other hand reaches up to pet soothingly at her hair.

"You're sure?" His voice is low and intimate above her.

"I'm sure." She offers up easily, allowing her thighs to fall open so he can settle between them. Still, she can sense his hesitancy.

"We can stop at any point, if it gets to be too much," he stresses.

And it's worth him saying. For the last several months she hasn't had anything other than fingers - and of course, his mouth - between her legs, and he looms large above her. But she's impatient for the delicious stretch of him inside her, and she can't imagine ever wanting to stop.

Her legs go to wrap around his waist, urging him to move into her without words. Still, he's slow to line himself up against her, pressing forward so carefully she's not even sure he'll be able to make it in. But gradually he enters her, slowly, each inch a slow drag against her inner walls. And it's definitely a stretch, though not an entirely unpleasant one. Not with the way her awareness is drawn completely to the place where their bodies are now joined - to the way his body shakes with the effort of going slowly enough and her own internal muscles are already fluttering around the delicious intrusion.

When he's fully seated within her she can feel his forehead drop to press against her own, one trembling hand lifting to run soothing caresses along her side and down past her hip. Her own hands run softly along the nape of his neck and his shoulders.

"You're being so good…"

That draws out another full body shudder from the man above her, but he remains steady and unmoving inside her, giving her time to adjust. And it's certainly a lot, but she was already so, so ready for him, and so it's not long before her hips are shifting beneath him, encouraging him to move. He draws out carefully, and not very far, before pushing back into her just as slowly. It's several more excruciatingly slow strokes before her muscles relax enough to allow him to really move. He presses a little deeper but just as carefully as before. She bucks up into him to encourage him to move a little faster.

"Please…"

She can feel his desire for the same warring with his need not to hurt her. Finally, she feels a strong arm sliding beneath her back before he shifts back onto his knees, pulling her up along with him. She ends up straddling him once more, and his arms are wrapped around her back and tangled in her hair, but she realizes he's put her in charge of the pace in this new position.

It's a little harder in their current position to achieve very deep strokes, but Amira finds herself rocking against him at a more gratifying pace that has her clenching around him and him groaning beneath her. She smiles at the sound but she knows they can't be too loud, and she leans down to muffle him with a heated kiss.

His hands move down to her hips, slowing her slightly so they can pull back and breathe without fear of waking the household. Amira takes the opportunity to murmur soft praises into his ear, delighting at the feel of his fingers tightening into her hips with every word.

Abruptly, his voice cracks through her stream of praise, "call me by my name."

She knows her expression is one of confusion, what name is he asking for?

"My real name, I know you know it already," he whispers into her throat.

"_Din…_" she breathes out. She had hoped he would offer it to her himself one day, but somehow this is even better. That he accepts that she already knows the name he calls himself only in memories. "_Din, Din…._"

"_Mira…"_

And then she's kissing him again because she can feel that she wants to shout his name loud enough to wake the entire village. She tries to press his name directly into his mind, so he can hear her continue calling it out as loud as she wants to, though she's still not sure exactly how any of this works. But she can sense he knows all the same, what it is she wants to say to him.

Just as he seems to recognize that she's getting close - she realizes both of them are. One of his hands slips between them and down to her clit, drawing tight circles around the little bundle of nerves that has her bucking helplessly against him. She can feel Din starting to lose his rhythm as well, hips stuttering up to meet her.

Amira has no idea what stars look like, but she imagines they look something like the little bursts of crackling energy behind her eyelids as she finally shakes apart around him. Even more indescribable is the feeling of Din tensing beneath her, the warmth that fills her with his release.

Their lips are finally forced apart by the need to draw in oxygen with shuddering breaths, foreheads resting together as they take in the same air. She knows he'll have to put the helmet back on before daylight, but it's enough to have him with her now, just like this.


End file.
